About

Prince's Gambit Casual Vampire Card Game

$46,774

pledged of $7,000 goal

1,520

backers

The night is young as you step into the VIP room of the hottest nightclub in town. You're one of the leaders of the city's vampire clans, and you've been summoned to meet with the Prince, along with your Machiavellian peers.

As each Primogen enters, the candles flicker as you stare into their eyes. The politics of the undead are always deadly, but there's a heightened danger tonight. Because you know that at least one of the vampires staring back at you is a traitor, a member of the nefarious Sabbat.

The Prince demands that you work together on a series of intrigues. It's a risk, but you're already part of the deadly game. You have to see the Prince's gambit through to the bitter end.

6-8 PLAYERS | 30-60 MINUTES | AGES 18+

Not Final Mock-up for Card Box

What is this game?

Prince's Gambit is a casual card game where each player is a vampire called to the court of the vampiric Prince of the city. Players must cooperate to gain the favor of the Prince while deducing who among them are secretly the traitorous Sabbat infiltrators.

What's cool about it?

Designed by long-time Vampire: the Masquerade tabletop RPG developer Justin Achilli, Prince's Gambit is a fast-paced social deduction game set within the world of Vampire, but which requires no special knowledge to play. Neophytes and experienced fans of Vampire both can jump right in.

Why Kickstarter?

While Onyx Path Publishing has done and paid for all the work to create the PDF and the Print on Demand physical versions, we're hoping that Kickstarter pledges will enable us to have a traditionally printed version manufactured. Then, we're hoping that we'll be able to add additional cards and illustrations to the deck by way of Stretch Goals, to really make the game shine!

There are also cards representing the Prince's Favor, Prestige tokens, Camarilla and Sabbat cards indicating which side you are on, and more.

Players belong to one of eight vampire Clans, and to one of two sects: the Camarilla,
which styles itself as the aristocracy of the night, or the
Sabbat, a death cult steeped in fire and blood.

Camarilla players do not know who is in each sect, but the Sabbat infiltrators know which other players are on their side.

The object of the game is to resolve Intrigues by bidding Trait cards which either add together or subtract from the total points needed as listed on the Intrigue card.

The Camarilla wants to have enough points to win the Intrigue, but the Sabbat want the Intrigue to fail.

After each Intrigue is resolved, Prestige Points are awarded to the players. The player with the most Prestige Points gain the Prince's Favor and gets to decide which Intrigue is next.

Play continues until the Camarilla win enough Intrigues to stabilize the city, depending on the number of players, or the Sabbat manage to cause three Intrigues to fail, causing the city power structure to collapse.

That is only a brief overview, so here is a link to the rules themselves:

If we have contributions beyond our target number, we've planned many added rewards for contributors.

First, we'll be looking towards adding additional cards, like more Clans or Intrigues, and art to our deck to really make it special with your help.

Next, we'll have goals that add special things to the project; perhaps a token to replace the Prince's Favor card, a Prestige treatment for the box, or a discount for an exclusive Prince's Gambit t-shirt.

And if we do really well, we're looking at adding Stretch Goals that will rebate some of the shipping costs. Essentially, we'll be giving you all back a bit as thanks for your support.

At $12,000 pledged, we will add the Followers of Set independent Clan to the deck. Infamous for their sly council and treacherous ways, they are sure to bring further intrigue to the game.

At $16,000 pledged, we will commission new art for the Strength 3 Trait card, so that we can make the deck look even more beautiful.

At $21,000 pledged, we will add the Giovanni independent Clan to the deck. Infamous for their family connections, and connections with the dead, they'll bring a scent of the grave to the table.

At $25,000 pledged, we will commission new art for the Mental 3 Trait card, so that we can make the deck look even more beautiful.

At $30,000 pledged, we will add the Ravnos independent Clan to the deck. Masters of illusion, are they truly your allies?

At $33,000 pledged, we will commission new art for the Social 3 Trait card, so that we can make the deck look even more beautiful.

At $36,000 pledged, we will add the Assamite independent Clan to the deck. Silent death is their hallmark...

At $41,000 pledged, we will commission new art for the remaining Trait cards all at once, so that we can make the deck look even more beautiful before the end of this Kickstarter.

At $46,000 pledged, we will add both the Lasombra and Tzimisce Clans to the deck. Normally lords of the Sabbat, can they be trusted as part of the Prince's gambit?

You can Add-on the items listed below by clicking on your Reward Tier to the right, and then when you get to the pledge page that confirms your pledge amount, manually changing the amount of your pledge from the base Reward amount to that Reward amount plus the amount of each Add-on that you want as listed below:

+$10 for the Vampire: the Masquerade 20th Anniversary PDF

A note on the above PDF: This is the same PDF as is available at DriveThruRPG.

You can also add on individual copies of the Prince's Gambit card deck to any pledge that already is shipping a physical deck by manually adding the appropriate amount on the pledge page:

+$19 for each Prince's Gambit card deck.

You can also add on a carved wooden collector's box to hold your Prince's Gambit card deck to any pledge that already is shipping a physical deck by manually adding the appropriate amount on the pledge page. The box is White Ash with Ebony finish
surrounding a Red felt interior and a Custom Prince's Gambit sculpt and Prestige counter disks from our friends at Dog Might Games:

You will get a chance to review, double-check, add more, and fix your Add-ons when we put up the BackerKit site sometime after this Kickstarter closes.

It's pretty easy. Contribute any amount you want, bearing in mind the levels of contribution and their commensurate rewards over there on the right. If we hit our $7K goal, you'll get the reward that goes with your level of contribution. Make sure you pledge now, this Kickstarter may be the only time this traditionally printed version will be available (although the PDF and physical card PoD versions will be available via DriveThruRPG.com when the project is finished).

Once the Kickstarter is over, and assuming we have funded, we'll be using BackerKit to handle the logistics of organizing pledges and Add-ons, including adding the shipping fee to your pledges.

SHIPPING:

As stated in the Reward Tier descriptions, there have been no shipping charges added to your pledges yet. We will do that in BackerKit and we will try up until those charges are added to find ways to cut shipping costs. Because, they can be brutal when shipping out of the US to all of our friends around the world.

As of right now, we are using the estimated shipping costs provided by our shippers of $6-$7 per card deck shipped in the US, around $15 to Canada, and up to $25 to other countries. Plus, we may need to add VAT or similar taxes.

We will be tweaking costs where we can. For example, we don't expect the shipping costs to be double for two decks, so we'll fine-tune those costs before adding them on to your pledges.

In addition, as noted above under Stretch Goals, we're looking at making some of our goals shipping rebates.

Vampire: The Masquerade®, World of Darkness®, and related properties are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of White Wolf Publishing AB. All rights reserved. http://www.white-wolf.com

Risks and challenges

Risk: The Prince's Gambit isn't created at all even though the goal is reached.

Solution: We have successfully shipped thirteen Kickstarter projects, two more are shipping right now, and several more are headed to completion as you read this. All those books have taught us how the various pieces of the process works, sometimes painfully, and we have increased our ability to judge the various stages of delivery better with each KS. Prince's Gambit is finished in layout, has been playtested extensively, and as it stands is ready to go to press. We're hoping to add cards and more art to the deck, but we are carefully limiting the amount of new stuff from Stretch Goals and Rewards.

Risk: Shipping costs soak up pledges that were meant to enable the creation of Prince's Gambit.

Solution: For the first time we are not including any shipping costs in our Rewards or Add-ons, but are looking to add them closer to shipping. That way, those costs which are out of our control don't impact our project.

Risk: The project will take a long time to produce and anger the backers.

Solution: As stated above, the basic set is finished, and we're keeping a close eye on any additional content that might affect our completion time. But this is the first time we are looking to print and manufacture a project overseas, and even though this is a printer that has performed excellently for other gaming companies, we still don't know ourselves what may go wrong.

That being said, we've learned many, many lessons with our previous Kickstarters and we're becoming much better at estimating the various pitfalls that will delay a KS project. We were able to deliver the PDFs for several of our last KS projects several months before the estimate, and recent Kickstarters started shipping in the month or the month before we estimated. That being said, backers need to be aware that they are enabling a process, and not a pre-order opportunity, and things do sometimes run slower than we want or anticipate with that process.

We've found that an open flow of communication between us and the backer community is vital so once the project funds we will deliver regular Updates on progress via Kickstarter as well as in our regular, weekly, Monday Meeting Notes blog at www.theonyxpath.com

Support

Select this reward

Pledge US$ 10 or more
About US$ 10

A Taste of Blood

Delve deeper into the sinister world of Prince's Gambit with a PDF of the Vampire: the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition tabletop RPG. This Reward does NOT include a copy of the Prince's Gambit card deck.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge US$ 25 or more
About US$ 25

The Deck and the Book

Both the Prince's Gambit casual card game and a PDF of Vampire 20th, the tabletop RPG game book which describes in more detail the dark world of the card game. Plus any additional Stretch Goal rewards!

Shipping cost to be added in BackerKit (as noted in the section to the left).

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge US$ 100 or more
About US$ 100

The Deck Signed by Justin, and the Book

Both the Prince's Gambit casual card game and a PDF of Vampire 20th, the tabletop RPG game book which describes in more detail the dark world of the card game. Plus any additional Stretch Goal rewards!

Creator Justin Achilli will personally sign the box and a random card in the deck!

Shipping cost to be added in BackerKit (as noted in the section to the left).